We have been astonished over the past five years how many American movies deal with young men in their twenties and thirties who refuse to grow up. Call them man-boys, geeks, dudes, or whatever but they seem to do nothing but laze around. In this sprightly work Kay Hymowitz, the William E. Simon fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor at City Journal, gives us the scoop on what is really going on in the lives of these young men. Essential to her investigation is the rise of women, who are the majority of college grads and winning the high paying jobs in new sectors of the knowledge economy such as media, law, public relations, and design.
Hymowitz states that both men and women in this age cohort are postponing marriage and starting a family, thus choosing work over domesticity. She labels this period of life "preadulthood" and the way things are going right now women are the beneficiaries. They are taking the creative jobs and men are being left in the dust. In a dazzling chapter on "The New Girl Order," she reveals the ways in which the pill and feminism have given many women sovereignty in the work area and large doses of self-esteem.
Meanwhile, the man-boys are seeing themselves at the movies where Adam Sandler is "the yogic master of the new genre of male arrested development." These young men love to hang with their buddies and play games of all types. According to the author, they have no life script and no special reason to grow up. Recently, the other role played by men in previous generations has also been taken away: women not marrying are using anonymous sperm donations to have their children. The result: in the future we will be seeing more father-free families. Hymowitz advises young men to "man up" by changing their ways.
